BLU UKJAZZDANCE's video: PRESERVATION OF MY BEBOP SWING STYLE APPLIED TO DEEP SOUL HOUSE JAZZ : BLU UK JAZZ DANCE :COVID2020

Being a UK Jazz dancer warrior is something I love very much. What do you love ? I tell stories through movement. I can list dozens and dozens of achievements – and list every job title and freelance role I have ever had, but the most important thing to say is that I truly understand dance; I truly believe in my community and as a Black dancer I have been involved in some of the most revolutionary, iconic dance and music movements in the last 30 years. For decades, I have been a champion of 1980s style UK jazz dance, producing events across fashion, clubs and at festivals, while sharing choreography, and mentoring 100s of dancers over the years. My style fuses the African, Caribbean European roots behind jazz dance and the influence of the club scene and House music. Highly politicized and focused on social issues and promoting personal well-being, I am also classical trained in Ballet and Contemporary Dance. I have studied business, arts management and dance at undergraduate levels and have worked across arts, music, community development, teaching, and business sectors since 1980s. More recently I work in digital spaces, exploring dance for health and charting the important history of Black dance and its dancers. As someone who has overcome learning disabilities, physical ailments, and injuries, my goal is to inspire everyone who encounters my art. The Whole Story - in greater detail! I was born in the slums of Moss Side, Manchester in 1964 to a dyslexic father who was undiagnosed until his 70s and a mother who had learning difficulties. Although they did not have high school education, they taught me their successful cultural and personal practices which gave me the belief that I could learn whatever I put my mind to. The first six years of my life was a quite traumatic time for me because I had undiagnosed dyslexia, asthma, and visual stress. These all led to low self-esteem, a negative self-image and self-identity, extreme shyness, social anxieties, clumsiness, passivity, and constant headache. However, I used to play dance and creative activities such as fashion designing and dressing up in dad Vintage clothes to escape successfully from these challenges. The next two years saw me being violently bullied and teased by pupils in new school. At 8yrs, I was sent to the Caribbean to recover, get a bit more toughened up and deepen my appreciation of myself. My time in the Caribbean taught me that I should not let my condition be a barrier to a higher achievement in life and to stand up for myself against all odds. Although I was written off in the educational system where the institutions, I went to made me believe that I was incapable of thinking and learning on a higher level. They also wrongly diagnosed me as a slow learner, my prolific engagement in sports, dance and leadership activity during my early years enabled me to manage and overcome 41 years of colossal educational system failure. I got the required foundational degree qualification to start University in 2005 where I discovered I was dyslexic. This was indeed a great feat and this is where the story gets more interesting. I discovered my talent in dance early in life. Today I am one of the UK's legendary UK Jazz Dance Pioneers. I am known as an innovator, champion, ambassador, educator, preserver choreographer, producer, director, and award-winning poet. I have combined my socially engaged practice combining community development and the arts working on regeneration projects in Manchester and London (as part of the New Deal for Communities Aylesbury Estate Freestyle Project). As a Cultural Creative Leader, I was awarded a place on the Arts Council England’s Cultural Leadership Programme “Artists Leading by Practice” in 2010. I am a leading UK Club dancer (Dance and House) and remain a practitioner using collaborative multi-art form practices that fuses urban, western and the diasporic to create new pieces of work and often new variations on traditional themes. As a professional dancer, I have mastered western styles of ballet, contemporary and modern as part of various known tutors and colleges. I have also worked with arts venues, musicians/ dancers (like H Patten) film-makers (like Clive Hunte), photographers (like Miselo Kunda) and fellow dancers to create creative processes of merit. Most recently, I worked alongside Baba Israel and Dawn Crandell on Digital Duets at Mixed Movement; a digital improvised showdown in live time between New York and Manchester dancers based at Contact in October 2011. Freestyle dance proactively enhanced my health, healing, happiness, and well-being. It also enhanced my self-confidence, my ability to manage myself and my life, self-respect ,personal awareness, empathy, self-love , neurology and physiology, and enabled me to cope, manage and overcome the major stress of 41yrs of undiagnosed dyslexia, asthma and visual stress. Music in this video